So foil is now legal in the UK (since September 5th), needle programmes across the country are now (hopefully) stocking it and offering it as a possible tool for change or early engagement route for people who smoke rather than inject their drug of choice. So here's a bit of advice for those workers giving it out.

Harm Reduction News

In 2011, Scotland became the first nation to adopt take-home naloxone (THN) as a funded public health policy and to put in place a science-led formal before/after evaluation. We summarise the background and rigorous set-up for Scotland’s before/after monitoring of its high-risk opioid fatalities.

The extraordinary recent developments in treatment for hepatitis C offer substantial grounds for optimism. A series of new drugs—more effective in viral clearance with fewer side-effects—are changing the landscape for hepatitis C.

Ecstacy in 2015

In 2015, though, the story is not only mysterious, it’s as complex as it is confusing and contradictory. As the MDMA market matures, it is splitting, with dirty, contaminated and downright deadly pills at one end of the scale, and dangerously high-dose tablets and unprecedentedly pure crystals at the other. Both these scenarios can pose risks and (let’s be honest) offer enormous pleasure to users.

New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) resource pack

In response to the NPS expert paneI, the government committed to developing a NPS resource pack for informal educators and frontline practitioners to use to prevent drug taking amongst young people. The pack has been created alongside drug treatment partners. Written for those working with young people.

Overdose Antidote's Rising Cost Could Take It Away From Those Who Need It Most

Advocates fear the higher cost of naloxone, often sold in the U.S. under the brand name Narcan, will ultimately lead to the deaths of addicts who could have been saved if they'd had access to the drug.

The case for supervised injecting

In its first 10 years of operation this injecting centre managed 4400 overdoses, without a single fatality. It bears repeating because it is extraordinary. Since the centre opened in 2001, as many as 200 people have shot up here each day, seven days a week, with not a single fatal overdose.

The UK needs Safe Injection Facilities

The evidence for safe injection sites speaks for itself: At the Insite injection facility in Vancouver, Canada, one of the most evaluated of international safe injection sites saw a 35% reduction in overdoses within 500 metres of the facility up to 2011. Other benefits that have been noted are a reduction in public drug use, a reduction in needle sharing, and a reduction in discarded drug paraphernalia in the vicinity of the facility. There has also been an increase in referral to treatment services...

When Training People to Prevent Drug Overdoses, Less Can Be More

You might think, as some state legislators seem to [PDF], that if five minutes of training is good, an hour is better. And some people might want a longer training session—for instance, parents of drug users might want more time to talk through their fears about the safety of their children or their concerns about giving them an injection. But these longer trainings often have the unintended consequence of excluding the most important demographic: drug users themselves.